Meaning and Mental Representations

Meaning and Mental Representations
Author: Umberto Eco
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 252
Release: 1988
Genre: Semantics
ISBN: 9780253337245

..". an excellent collection... " -- Journal of Language Social Psychology An important collection of original essays by well-known scholars debating the questions of logical versus psychologically-based interpretations of language.

The Construction of Mental Representations During Reading

The Construction of Mental Representations During Reading
Author: Herre van Oostendorp
Publisher: Psychology Press
Total Pages: 464
Release: 1998-11-01
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1135688397

This volume presents in-depth investigations of the processes of meaning-making during reading at both local (discourse) and global (general knowledge) levels. It considerably extends our knowledge of how mental representations are constructed and updated during reading. The book also provides insight into the process of representation construction by using online measures and relating this process with final memory representations; provides detailed models of these processes; pays attention to the coordination of multiple representations constructed; focuses on the monitoring and updating of mental representations; and applies all this knowledge to richer and more complicated texts than are often used in laboratories.

What are Mental Representations?

What are Mental Representations?
Author: Joulia Smortchkova
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2020-09-28
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0190686685

The topic of this book is mental representation, a theoretical concept that lies at the core of cognitive science. Together with the idea that thinking is analogous to computational processing, this concept is responsible for the "cognitive turn" in the sciences of the mind and brain since the 1950s. Conceiving of cognitive processes (such as perception, reasoning, and motor control) as consisting of the manipulation of contentful vehicles that represent the world has led to tremendous empirical advancements in our explanations of behaviour. Perhaps the most famous discovery that explains behavior by appealing to the notion of mental representations was the discovery of 'place' cells that underlie spatial navigation and positioning, which earned researchers John O'Keefe, May-Britt Moser, and Edvard I. Moser a joint Nobel Prize in 2014. And yet, despite the empirical importance of the concept, there is no agreed definition or theoretical understanding of mental representation. This book constitutes a state-of-the-art overview on the topic of mental representation, assembling some of the leading experts in the field and allowing them to engage in meaningful exchanges over some of the most contentious questions. The collection gathers both proponents and critics of the notion, making room for debates dealing with the theoretical and ontological status of representations, the possibility of formulating a general account of mental representation which would fit our best explanatory practices, and the possibility of delivering such an account in fully naturalistic terms. Some contributors explore the relation between mutually incompatible notions of mental representation, stemming from the different disciplines composing the cognitive sciences (such as neuroscience, psychology, and computer science). Others question the ontological status and explanatory usefulness of the notion. And finally, some try to sketch a general theory of mental representations that could face the challenges outlined in the more critical chapters of the volume.

Mental Representations

Mental Representations
Author: Ruth M. Kempson
Publisher: CUP Archive
Total Pages: 244
Release: 1988
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9780521399050

This dynamic collection provides an overview of the relationship between linguistic form and interpretation as exemplified by the most influential of these paradigms - the current Chomskian Government and Binding paradigm, the conflicting Situation Semantics paradigm, the Davidsonian programme and, finally, the new relevance theory of cognition and pragmatics.

Representation in Cognitive Science

Representation in Cognitive Science
Author: Nicholas Shea
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2018-10-04
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0198812884

Our thoughts are meaningful. We think about things in the outside world; how can that be so? This is one of the deepest questions in contemporary philosophy. Ever since the 'cognitive revolution', states with meaning-mental representations-have been the key explanatory construct of the cognitive sciences. But there is still no widely accepted theory of how mental representations get their meaning. Powerful new methods in cognitive neuroscience can now reveal information processing in the brain in unprecedented detail. They show how the brain performs complex calculations on neural representations. Drawing on this cutting-edge research, Nicholas Shea uses a series of case studies from the cognitive sciences to develop a naturalistic account of the nature of mental representation. His approach is distinctive in focusing firmly on the 'subpersonal' representations that pervade so much of cognitive science. The diversity and depth of the case studies, illustrated by numerous figures, make this book unlike any previous treatment. It is important reading for philosophers of psychology and philosophers of mind, and of considerable interest to researchers throughout the cognitive sciences.

The Construction of Mental Representations During Reading

The Construction of Mental Representations During Reading
Author: Herre van Oostendorp
Publisher: Psychology Press
Total Pages: 368
Release: 1998-11
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1135688400

This volume presents in-depth investigations of the processes of meaning-making during reading at both local (discourse) and global (general knowledge) levels. It will be of theoretical and practical interest to cognitive scientists & reading researchers

Symbolic Mental Representations in Arts and Mystical Experiences

Symbolic Mental Representations in Arts and Mystical Experiences
Author:
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 252
Release: 2022-04-29
Genre:
ISBN: 9780367505370

Symbolic Mental Representations in Arts and Mystical Experiences explains how the individual's conceptualization of reality is dependent on the development of their brain, body structure, and the experiences that are physiologically confronted, acted, or observed via learning and/or simulation, occurring in family or community settings. The book offers support for Jean Knox's reinterpretation of Jung's archetypal hypothesis, exposing the fundamentality of the body - in its neurophysiological development, bodily-felt sensations, non-verbal interactions, affects, emotions, and actions - in the process of meaning-making. Using information from disciplines such as Affective Neuroscience, Embodied Cognition, Attachment Theory, and Cognitive Linguistics, it clarifies how the most refined experiences of symbolic imagination are rooted in somatopsychic patterns. This book will be of great interest for academics and researchers in the fields of Analytical Psychology, Affective Neuroscience, Linguistics, Anthropology of Consciousness, Art-therapy, and Mystical Experiences, as well as Jungian and post-Jungian scholars, philosophers, and teachers.

The Philosophy of Animal Minds

The Philosophy of Animal Minds
Author: Robert W. Lurz
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 321
Release: 2009-09-03
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1139481029

This volume is a collection of fourteen essays by leading philosophers on issues concerning the nature, existence, and our knowledge of animal minds. The nature of animal minds has been a topic of interest to philosophers since the origins of philosophy, and recent years have seen significant philosophical engagement with the subject. However, there is no volume that represents the current state of play in this important and growing field. The purpose of this volume is to highlight the state of the debate. The issues which are covered include whether and to what degree animals think in a language or in iconic structures, possess concepts, are conscious, self-aware, metacognize, attribute states of mind to others, and have emotions, as well as issues pertaining to our knowledge of and the scientific standards for attributing mental states to animals.

Mental Representation and Consciousness

Mental Representation and Consciousness
Author: E. Marbach
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 207
Release: 2013-03-14
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9401722390

conditions of the possibility of Experience ... must mean nothing else than all that which lies immanently in the essence of Experience ... and therefore belongs to it indispensably. The essence of Experience that phenomenological analysis of Experience elucidates is the same as the possibility of Experience, and all that which is determined in the essence, in the possibility of Experience, is eo ipso 1 condition of the possibility of Experience. Through acquaintance with Husserl's work, then, I developed my way of understand ing what, according to their very possibility, lies in conscious activities of mentally representing something, for example, by imagining or remembering it, or by viewing it in a picture, all these understood as forms of modified perception. As Husserl himself made clear, such reflective and descriptive analyses of the mental activities according to their very possibility are carried out regardless of the way they have actually come to be. However, I was also interested in developmen tal questions, especially with regard to the activity of imagining. Hence I turned to cognitive developmental psychology in order to get acquainted with the neces sary empirical material. Moreover, I conducted a pilot-study with young children that I had conceived according to phenomenologically relevant aspects concerning the difference and yet inner connection of the activities of imagining and viewing 2 pictures.